Rishi Sunak thought of giving hundreds of thousands of Brits reward playing cards or pre-paid debit playing cards in an try to spice up the economic system as the primary Covid lockdown eased.
The then-Chancellor mentioned the concept with officers on the Treasury in June 2020 in keeping with paperwork revealed by the Covid Inquiry this week. In a witness assertion to the Inquiry from Dan York-Smith, the Treasury’s director common for tax and welfare, revealed various plans had been mentioned.
They included vouchers – within the type of a QR code for cell phones – or pre-paid debit playing cards to spend within the struggling hospitality sector. Officials thought of whether or not the debit playing cards “could be distributed through digital wallets” or in “physical card form”, in keeping with the Covid Inquiry paperwork.
But they discovered the choice of pre-paid playing cards “presented substantial challenges and risks” and would have concerned registering each grownup within the UK. Mr York-Smith added: “Even if that could be achieved, there would have been significant risks associated with tens of millions of cards being distributed through the post as part of a highly publicised and marketed scheme, such as theft, fraud and loss.”
The thought was finally dropped by the Chancellor at a gathering on 23 June 2020. Instead, the Government opted for the notorious Eat Out to Help Out – a scheme mentioned to have been dubbed “eat out to help the virus” by the Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty.
Mr York-Smith admitted in his witness assertion that whereas fraud and worth for cash had been assessed “there was no specific risk assessment of how the EOTHO scheme might impact on Covid-19 transmission”. But he insisted the choice to go forward with the scheme “took place in the context of extensive cross-government lifting” of lockdown measures, “in which HM Treasury participated”.
Appearing on the Inquiry earlier this month, Mr Sunak tried to defend the scheme because the “right thing to do” as he confronted a six-hour interrogation. The PM dismissed criticism of his Eat Out To Help Scheme as he argued many hospitality jobs would have been put in danger with “devastating consequences” if it hadn’t been launched in August 2020.
“In order to safeguard the jobs of 2million people working in the sector, you need people to go and use those businesses,” he mentioned.
Grilled on why Government scientists together with Professor Sir Chris Whitty had not been consulted on the concept, Mr Sunak insisted the £840million low cost scheme was a “micro policy”. Sir Chris is alleged to have privately referred to it as “Eat Out To Help Out The Virus”, whereas Sir Patrick Vallance, who was chief scientific adviser, final month informed the inquiry it was “highly likely” to have fuelled deaths.
But Mr Sunak hit again arguing they’d “ample opportunity to raise those concerns between the announcement of the scheme and its implementation”. “None of them chose to do so in any forum that they were in,” he added.